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Thursday, April 23, 2015

Those who want Iran war wouldn't be drafted

GEORGE TEMPLETONCOMMENTARY

By George TempletonGazette Blog ColumnistThe Hero

James
had to prove he could win at the casino. The house knew that the coin
toss would come up heads or tails. It paid twenty dollars out for a
ten dollar bet on either pick. James knew he could always win by
putting ten dollars on heads and ten on tails, because those were the
only two possibilities. Will our Middle East policy be similar?

War Drums

According
to an authoritative survey, more than 2/3 of the American people want
military intervention in Iran. The survey participants would not be
drafted to fight. They never experienced the sacrifices of the Greatest
Generation. They had not heard about civic duty and World War II war
ration books limiting the availability of meat, sugar, butter, gas, and
tires. The victory speed limit was 35 miles per hour, a value
incomprehensible to HB2662, the recent “authoritative” speeding fine
dismissal bill.

Peace
is our objective. We don’t pick fights. We promote democracy instead
of building empires, but our freedom depends on liberty in faraway
lands. To be safe, we have the largest military force in the world, but
its use can escalate conflict instead of increasing security. Our
actions have always been defending and spreading freedom, but this can
be mistaken as aggression. Terrorism is not national. We require the
support of those whom we would bomb.

BulliesGenuine
authority helps us. An authoritarian makes everybody’s rules. He
preaches less government, but it does not apply to him. He hides behind
closed doors claiming that transparency inhibits his free speech. To
retain unjustified and unwarranted control he tears down
accomplishments, generates ill will, distrusts, and denigrates others
instead of building them up. Real authorities have a statesman-like
character putting people and enduring principle ahead of self-interest.
Authoritarians believe that leadership is the exercise of power given
by wealth.

Bullies
risk our security by extending their authority into areas they know
little about. To force their way on others they repress disagreeing
speech. They restrict voting, limit choice, and make false claims when
they can get away with it. Their belief simplifies and removes
ambiguity. It makes cooperation, moderation, and humility into vices
that demonstrate weakness of character. Certainty is necessary to
believe that democracy can be introduced by military force and that we
have the license to remake the world in our image.

God Said

Pat
Robertson summed it up when he said that we should crush ISIS like we
did Hitler. He accused our President as not believing in America and as
lacking “fundamental values” because he was taught by elite leftists
who don’t really love this country. If one is not a religious
fundamentalist does it follow that he is an atheist? Does love of
country require intolerance of constructive critique? Are the values of
the poor and obscure more patriotically moral than those of the rich
and famous? Is “anticipatory self-defense” needed to prevent war?

Destiny

In
1950 many people argued that man would never go to the moon, but they
believed in invaders from Mars and flying saucers. I was fascinated by
those pictures on the covers of the science fiction magazines. I was
not allowed to read them or to attend movies concerned with the threat
of nuclear war, like Rocketship X-M and The Day the Earth Stood Still,
but they could not keep me from reading the science fiction in the
Saturday Evening Post magazine. It was the same way with the book of
Revelation that captured my attention more than the preacher’s sermon.

Revelation
is often viewed as warning of world ending events that are starting to
happen, but this could be a consequence of constructing a pattern to fit
with what we are familiar with. It seems a big reach to give John, the
writer of Revelation, knowledge of tanks, airplanes, and nuclear bombs
when he lived within the technology of the ancient Roman Empire. If the
end is predestined there is not much hope for most of the world and
little point in geopolitics. John may have used his fantastic dreams as
a literary tool. If so, John calls us to do something different, not
to remain on the sidelines, because we have hope for the future and
responsibility to it.

Controversy
comes from history and the writings of the great thinkers including the
Bible and the Constitution. But the fact remains that we cannot agree
on what they say, even if they are a belief instead of a book or
document, and even if they are claimed literally true, original in
meaning, and never ambiguous or contradictory. We learn as much about
ourselves in the present as we learn from investigating the past.

Historical

The
“news” host impugned his university student “children” when he claimed
that they could not honestly answer their atheistic, “America hating”,
liberal professors. Was he confusing what to think with how to reason?
We wonder if his children actually believed, “Daddy knows best”. Was
he referring to the old “consensus school” history that Texas school
boards want taught? Today’s social history recognizes recent
controversy and that women and minorities have a history of their own.

History
does not repeat itself, but we can contemplate human patterns and gain
perspective from them. Why, when, and how do we wage war? Is it true
that all American wars have been defensive? Does America always win the
war and lose the peace?

World War II

Diplomacy
is as important as winning battles, but the “unfair” World War I Paris
peace conference unintentionally sowed the seeds of German resentment
and Hitler’s rise. Appeasement was not a new political strategy in the
1930’s. The problem was that Hitler could not be appeased.

World
War II began in the years 1931 to 1941 as a series of unconnected wars
in Asia and Europe that began to coalesce in late 1941. Today, the
tension among national and religious interests in the Shias, Sunnis,
Sufis, Alawites, Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, Taliban,
Al-Shaabab, Boca Haram, and ISIS prove that religion does not belong in
the public square.

It’s not true
that the Axis dictators grabbed power contrary to the will of their
people. Realizing a threat, America provided military aid to the
nations fighting the Axis. We provide arms and sanction economically,
but we cannot command others to do our bidding. We can change their
minds but not their hearts. Similar policies led to the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor.

Even though
there were 15 million Americans in uniform deployed around the world,
they amounted to only 25 percent of the allied forces. We did not
single handedly crush Hitler. However, America was becoming a super
industrialized nation. We supplied more than 50 percent of the war
material used to defeat the Axis. By the end of the war, America owned
nearly 2/3 of the world’s gold and more than 1/2 of its manufacturing
capacity. Our exports more than doubled our imports and we were a net
creditor. We were the world’s leading producer of oil, steel,
airplanes, automobiles, and electronics.

Opposite
to Patrick M. Wood’s conspiracy theories and the Payson Tea Party’s
anti-science paranoia, technology is what won the war, created the
middle class, cured disease, fed, clothed, and entertained us. Our
people’s sovereignty and their cherished principles, not military might
or wealth, made us into the greatest nation.

The Cold War

The
defeat of the Axis eliminated the common enemy of the U.S. and Russia,
but it did not lead to peace. It left a power vacuum accentuating the
opposed ideologies of Communism and Capitalism. The resulting Cold War
would come to threaten the destruction of the earth in the 1980’s. The
policy of Mutual Assured Destruction gave us the false security of
invincible power. It lasted until the collapse of the Soviet Union in
1990. The Korean and Vietnam wars were fought within the blanket of
that ideological conflict. The current conflict is between Islamic and
Christian anti-intellectualism and Western Values.

Korean War

In
Korea, the surrender of the Japanese left the country occupied by
American and Russian forces, each having installed rival governments.
In 1950, with Stalin’s consent and Truman’s condemnation, the North
invaded the South. Because Russia had boycotted the UN, we were able to
get UN sanction for military intervention, but that threatened to turn
into another world war when the Chinese came to the aid of the North
Koreans. Sixty years later, Korea remains divided and we still have a
costly military presence there. Sanctions did not prevent North Korea
from developing a nuclear weapon.

Vietnam War

The
Vietnam War began with the failure of French colonial rule that
deprived the Vietnamese people their right of self-determination. The
Gulf of Tonkin belief denied all Johnson Administration responsibility
for an attack by the North and ignored contrary evidence that a second
attack may not have occurred. By 1968 we had more than 500,000 forces
in Vietnam and we had stopped but not defeated the Communists. The war
was a failure because the South Vietnamese government was never stable,
we did not adequately consider Vietnamese cultural history, the
difficulty of creating a government like ours, and that the war was not
just a domino game. This longest war showed that we underestimated the
resolve of the Vietnamese people and overestimated the commitment of
America. We won every battle but lost the war.

Permanent War

America
has a responsibility to promote common humanitarian interests by
setting clear examples. The rise of home grown Islamic terrorists
reveals a weakness spawned by the compromise of principles and united by
Islamic fundamentalism that will not be resolved by military might.

The Winner

Everybody
wins in a fair negotiation, but American politics negates that. The
possibilities between having and not having a bomb cannot be managed by
divided government and showmen. Experts know that the game will be
different fifteen years from now,
but simplification speaks louder and clearer than science. Our risk is
that we will become like the hero described in my introduction, James,
who always wins but accomplishes nothing.

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